Donald Trump pushes for ‘buy American, hire American’

Washington: US President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order on Tuesday directing federal agencies to recommend changes to a temporary visa programme used to bring foreign workers to the US to fill high-skilled jobs. Two senior Trump administration officials who briefed reporters at the White House said Mr Trump will also use the “buy American and hire American” order to seek changes in government procurement practices to increase the purchase of American products in federal contracts.

Mr Trump is to sign the order when he visits the world headquarters of Snap-On Inc., a tool manufacturer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The order is an attempt by Mr Trump to carry out his “America First” campaign pledges to reform US immigration policies and encourage purchases of American products.

The order will call for “the strict enforcement of all laws governing entry into the United States of labour from abroad for the stated purpose of creating higher wages and higher employment rates for workers in the United States,” one of the senior officials said.

It will call on the departments of labour, justice, homeland security and state to take action on what the official called “fraud and abuse” in the US immigration system to protect American workers.

The order will call on those four federal departments to propose reforms to ensure H-1B visas are awarded to the most skilled or highest paid applicant. The number of applications for H-1B visas fell to 199,000 this year from 236,000 in 2016, according US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Companies say they use visas to recruit top talent. More than 15 per cent of Facebook’s US employees in 2016 used a temporary work visa, according to a Reuters analysis of US labour department filings.

A majority of the H-1B visas are, however, awarded to outsourcing firms, sparking criticism by sceptics.